


Survival

by Needle_Bones



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:43:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3750262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Needle_Bones/pseuds/Needle_Bones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first proper Outlast fic I ever wrote down. Just a little rambling, post-Trager thing, really. Because scared, bleeding reporters hiding in lockers, that's why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survival

The air was cold.

Miles lay down as well as he could in the vent, wincing at the sting of the fresh bruises he was sure were coloring his chest by then. He’d hit that ledge pretty hard but it didn’t feel like anything was broken. Well, aside from the ragged edges of bone and bleeding strings of skin where two of his fingers used to be.

He swallowed hard and cringed at the harsh taste of vomit still coating the back of his throat. He tensed up, breath catching as he fought the images down – the sensations of the straps pulled tight around his wrists, the sick snapping, squelching sound of his skin being split under dirty metal, the bones in his fingers splintering under the blades.

Seriously, fuck Trager.

Maybe he should just lie there. Maybe he should just wait to bleed out. Maybe he should just quietly starve to death in the air vents of that damned asylum.

Of course, that would have been the easy way out and if there was one thing Miles Upshur prided himself on never doing, it was taking the easy way out. Still, the adrenaline was cutting off now and he was starting to shake. He needed food and something that could pass for first aid but that meant jumping down to the cracking tile floor and making his way to the kitchen, wherever that was, and then searching around for medical supplies.

It wasn’t exactly the best situation. But staying put wasn’t necessarily a good idea either. He was losing blood. He didn’t think anyone would think to check the vents – or could fit if they did find him up there – but he supposed there was always that chance. It was times like this that Miles was grateful for his smaller frame.

_Just breathe. Think. Risk assessment. That’s kept you alive so far. Just don’t go into shock._

He couldn’t hear anyone wandering around below him but that didn’t mean much. At least most of the inmates didn’t seem to want him dead. The ones that did, though… well they tended to devote themselves to the cause.

All right, this wasn’t getting him anywhere. He hadn’t eaten anything solid since around noon the day before he drove up – that damn habit of his, getting too wrapped up in his work – and as a result there was this gnawing pain in his stomach.

Miles sighed through his teeth, cursed at the stabbing pain in his hands, and started forward. Crawling through an air vent wasn’t exactly easy but he was starting to get used to it and that might have scared him more than anything else.

The hallway was clear as far as he could see. Covered in and reeking of blood and guts, but clear. Miles swung his legs in front of him and jumped, landing like a cat on cold, cracked tile. Still. No sound. At least, nothing that sounded intent on killing him.

He bit his lip and curled his remaining fingers against his shirt, standing still for a good thirty seconds in the darkness, just breathing. God, every little jolt made him want to just curl up in a corner, slit his wrists and be done with it. The air tasted like rust and blood and he picked his way down the hallway with the back of his left hand on the wall. He could have used the night vision mode on his camera but it ate through batteries when he had it on. There was only a small gap in the barricade up ahead, between the bed frame and an old dresser with badly peeling paint.

Miles did bring his camera up then, and spun on his heel. The last time he’d tried to slide through something like that, that big fucker, Chris Walker, had grabbed him by his collar and thrown him through a window – which was a fall Miles wasn’t too keen on repeating.

Wait a minute.

He hit the zoom on the camera, tracking the small flicker he thought he’d seen in the corner of the frame.

“Gotcha,” he said, quiet, still tense. Walker was pacing. It didn’t look like he’d noticed him yet but there he was, lumbering along like the murderous giant he was. Miles hissed though his teeth and turned, sliding though the gap as fast as he could without tripping or knocking something over. Like hell he was going to stay anywhere near that son of a bitch.

“Little pig.”

His heart stopped cold under his bruised ribs and it didn’t restart again until he hit the ground on the other side of the barricade, sprawling on the tile with a sharp, pained gasp. Walker was there and staring at him and then Miles was on his feet and running. Left around the corner and then a hard right into one of the security rooms.

_Breathe._

He could barely hear that thought over the reverberating echo of the door slamming shut, coupled with his own panicked, shallow gasps.

_How the hell did he do that?_ _How the hell-_

The door buckled in with a deafening  _crack!_ Miles twisted away and ran for the far wall. The second locker he tried was unlocked. He slammed the small metal door shut just as Walker beat the main door to a twisted pulp.

He waited, left hand pressed over his mouth, breathing in the smell of drying blood.

_Go away._   _Go the_   _hell_   _away you_   _bastard_.

He didn’t actually see where he went. He had his eyes closed until he stopped hearing that God-awful breathing.

_Just… just sit down for a while._

It was more like collapsing but Miles was far, far past the point of caring about appearances by then.  It was more than a little cramped in that metal box but he felt safer in there than he did being out and roaming the halls. Somewhere in the time between Walker and now, he had twisted his hands into his shirt. The pressure on the wounds made it a little hard to breathe but it seemed to be slowing the bleeding a bit.

Just down the hall, right? Just a little further. He could cut through the kitchen. He could cut through the kitchen and find something to eat that wasn’t soaked through with blood.

Right. Worth a shot at least. What did he have to lose?

He almost laughed but unwinding his hands from his shirt fabric stopped that. He'd be fine. He just had to move fast and keep quiet. Yeah. Easy.

Miles pulled himself to his feet and pushed the locker open.


End file.
